A rental maintenance workflow from tenant request to vendor invoice

Capture the property and unit, the resident’s description, the affected area and any photos they can safely provide. Ask when the problem started and whether it is getting worse. Avoid asking the resident to diagnose the cause or attempt work that belongs to a qualified professional.

Separate the reporting channel from the record of work. A request can arrive through a portal, phone call or email, but the important details should end up in one place. Give the resident a way to identify the request when following up, and record who will review it.

Review the description and available evidence before choosing a category and priority. A slowly dripping tap and water actively spreading across a floor may require different responses even though both are plumbing requests. Keep a short explanation of the priority you choose.

Use your emergency process for immediate danger; a maintenance portal is not a substitute for emergency services. Review applicable repair obligations and access requirements for the property rather than relying on a generic response-time promise. An internal priority label should help coordination, not imply that local requirements have been satisfied.

Tenant Galaxy can suggest a category, urgency and trade from the description. Treat those suggestions as a starting point and correct them when the situation calls for a different response.

Choose the appropriate trade and assign a specific vendor. Send the unit, the issue description, relevant photos and the agreed access instructions. Make the approval boundary clear: is the vendor inspecting and quoting, completing a defined repair or returning for work that has already been approved?

Record who is coordinating the appointment and what needs to happen if the scope changes. If the plumber finds a separate problem, update the existing record or create a linked follow-up issue. Avoid allowing a larger job to proceed simply because someone received the initial dispatch message.

Use statuses that describe the work: reported, assigned, in progress and completed. If you need an additional visit or another trade, note who owns that follow-up rather than leaving the job in an ambiguous “waiting” state. Keep the date and the latest useful update visible.

Give the resident an update when the next step changes. You do not need to share every internal note or vendor discussion. A concise explanation of what has been scheduled, what remains open and how to report a change is usually more useful than forwarding an entire message thread.

For a repair that affects turnover readiness, connect the follow-up work to the turnover project. A repaired leak may still leave drywall and paint work to coordinate before a new move-in.

Ask for completion notes and relevant photos. Compare them with the approved scope and check whether another visit or trade remains necessary. Where appropriate, confirm with the resident that the reported problem has been addressed. A vendor’s completion update and the manager’s review are separate steps.

Keep the original description and earlier evidence in the history. If the issue recurs, the next person should be able to see what was reported, what was done and what remained uncertain. That record is more useful than a fresh ticket that begins with no context.

Attach the invoice to the request or turnover job it belongs to. Check the vendor, invoice number, date, line items, tax and total against the approved scope. Review a possible duplicate before paying it, and record any difference between the original estimate and final cost.

AI invoice reading can reduce retyping, but the extracted values still need review. In Tenant Galaxy, an uploaded invoice can become a draft for a manager to check, link to the job and move through review, approval and a recorded paid status. Recording a paid status does not itself send money to the vendor.

Use the final reviewed cost consistently wherever it is needed, including the job history and any separately reviewed deposit calculation. Export the records for your bookkeeping process, then close the request with a clear account of the work and its cost.